The durability of wooden products

As an organic and heterogenous material, wood is susceptible to damage caused by different micro-organisms, such as decay fungi, mould and bluestain fungi, insects and bacteria. Level and duration of moisture stress connected with temperature are the most critical factors for the biological durability of wood. Some wood species have evolved to produce extractive compounds that can protect the wood, but the decay resistance among woods may vary among tree species, among individual trees, and within individual trees. The wood preservation and coating of wood are conventional techniques to add the durability of wood. In recent years number of studies and method development work have been directed to apply different modification technology to solid wood in order to improve the durability and behavior of wood in adverse environments. The modification of wood can be directed to improve the dimensional stability properties, hardness properties and/or durability properties of wood against decay. Among the chemical modification reactions acetylation is one of the most studied, as this method has shown potential with minimum adverse side effects. Heat treatment of wood is very popular topic in Europe at the moment. Also new biocide treatments has been studied. Targeted biocides provide an efficient tool for designing of wood preservation which is efficient, safe in use, have low environmental impact and designed to most suitable end use